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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Forest Thomer walked up to a small group of people at a May 23
Party in the Park event, pointed to a slight, wheelchair-bound woman
next to him and asked, “Do you want to laugh at the crippled girl?”

The politically incorrect question wasn’t intended to demean Ally Bruener and her battle with congenital muscular dystrophy
but rather to promote her next gig as a comedian. After Thomer asked
the question, Bruener wheeled her chair up to the group, told them a
joke and where she next was performing.

Thomer’s guerrilla
marketing, though, erupted into such a to do that he was arrested by
Cincinnati police and charged with disorderly conduct, punishable by up
to 30 days in jail. Now, Thomer (pronounced Toe-mer) and Bruener insist
they are in a free speech fight.

“The police are trying to censor
us. They’re trying to tell us how we can or can’t promote my comedy,”
Bruener said from her Alexandria home.

“I don’t know when it became a bad thing for just saying words,” said Thomer, 25, of Cold Spring.
Bruener,
23, wants to break down the stigma the word “cripple” connotes and
engage those who think because her body confines her to a wheelchair
she’s mentally deficient.

“They assume I have no common sense,” she said. “There’s a lot of harsh stereotypes against people with disabilities.”

After
graduating from Campbell County High, Bruener received an academic
scholarship to the University of Louisville. She dropped out seeking a
career in comedy. She’s appeared in several clubs and comedy events in
Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, making her disability part of her act.

“I
want to open the door to the conversation,” Bruener said. “People don’t
expect the crippled girl to talk about it. When I bring it to light, it
makes me more comfortable.”

Her self-mocking website
is replete with references to and jokes about muscular dystrophy, a
degenerative disease that usually affects voluntary muscles, and her
life in a wheelchair.

The Party in the Park marketing was going
well, once those approached got over the shock of “the crippled girl”
question, Bruener said.

That’s when, she and Thomer said, a member
of the event staff told them to move on. Within minutes, Cincinnati
police were on the scene.

Court documents
show police accused Thomer of “walking into people and shouting
obscenities at them” and when told to stop “persisted in yelling and
shouting causing annoyance and alarm to others.”

“We don’t allow
anyone to hand out promotional materials at our events,” Chris Kemper,
Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber spokesman, said. Kemper was told Thomer
“disrupted the event because he was videotaping our guests without their
approval” in the public park.

That’s not true, Thomer and Bruener
said. When Thomer asked police why he was asked to leave, he said they
gave him no reply. “They never made any effort to find out what was
going on,” he said.

Thomer was arrested, threatened with a Taser
and being walked to the cruiser to be taken to jail, he said, when he
told police he was Bruener’s only ride home. They released him but
ordered him to court.

“They told me I needed to be more selective
about who I associate with,” Bruener said. “I gave my business card to
the cops and they looked at it and laughed.”

“They talked to Ally like she was mentally challenged,” Thomer said.

Police
wouldn’t explain their actions. “I’m not going to try this gentleman in
the media,” Cincinnati police spokesman Lt. Anthony Carter said,
declining to talk about the case.

Bruener and Thomer believe the
police response was typical of those exposed to a wheelchair-bound
person who fights against being labeled and demands to be treated like
any other.

“I will not sit back and allow anyone trample over my right to show and tell the world that I am proud to be crippled,” Bruener said.

About Me

I am full-time Mass Communication faculty at Towson University in Maryland and adjunct faculty in the City University of New York (CUNY) Master's in Disability Studies program.
I research media and disability issues and wrote a 2010 book on the subject: Representing Disability in an Ableist World: Essays on Mass Media, published by Advocado Press.
The media have real power to define what the public knows about disability and that's what I research.